COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE SEND THIS ONE TO HILBAMA?

To those of you who have forgotten, and those of you too young to remember - as LOST almost was, THIS IS WHAT A PRESIDENT IS SUPPOSED TO SOUND LIKE. Where have all the decades gone?

Washington, D.C. March 16, 1968
I am today announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United States.
I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man but to propose new policies. I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, and I feel that I'm obliged to do all that I can.
I run to seek new policies - policies to end the bloodshed in Vietnam and in our cities, policies to close the gaps that now exist between black and white, between rich and poor, between young and old, in this country and around the rest of the world.
I run for the presidency because I want the Democratic Party and the United States of America to stand for hope instead of despair, for reconciliation of men instead of the growing risk of world war.
I run because it is now unmistakably clear that we can change these disastrous, divisive policies only by changing the men who are now making them. For the reality of recent events in Vietnam has been glossed over with illusions.
The Report of the Riot Commission has been largely ignored.
The crisis in gold, the crisis in our cities, the crisis in our farms and in our ghettos have all been met with too little and too late.
No one knows what I know about the extraordinary demands of the presidency can be certain that any mortal can adequately fill that position.
But my service in the National Security Council during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin crisis of 1961 and 1962, and later the negotiations on Laos and on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty have taught me something about both the uses and limitations of military power, about the opportunities and the dangers which await our nation in many corners of the globe in which I have traveled.
As a member of the cabinet and member of the Senate I have seen the inexcusable and ugly deprivation which causes children to starve in Mississippi, black citizens to riot in Watts; young Indians to commit suicide on their reservations because they've lacked all hope and they feel they have no future, and proud and able-bodied families to wait our their lives in empty idleness in eastern Kentucky.
I have traveled and I have listened to the young people of our nation and felt their anger about the war that they are sent to fight and about the world they are about to inherit.
In private talks and in public, I have tried in vain to alter our course in Vietnam before it further saps our spirit and our manpower, further raises the risks of wider war, and further destroys the country and the people it was meant to save.
I cannot stand aside from the contest that will decide our nation's future and our children's future.
The remarkable New Hampshire campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy has proven how deep are the present divisions within our party and within our country. Until that was publicly clear, my presence in the race would have been seen as a clash of personalities rather than issues.
But now that the fight is on and over policies which I have long been challenging, I must enter the race. The fight is just beginning and I believe that I can win ...
Finally, my decision reflects no personal animosity or disrespect toward President Johnson. He served President Kennedy with the utmost loyalty and was extremely kind to me and members of my family in the difficult months which followed the events of November of 1963.
I have often commended his efforts in health, in education, and in many other areas, and I have the deepest sympathy for the burden that he carries today.
But the issue is not personal. It is our profound differences over where we are heading and what we want to accomplish.
I do not lightly dismiss the dangers and the difficulties of challenging an incumbent President. But these are not ordinary times and this is not an ordinary election.
At stake is not simply the leadership of our party and even our country. It is our right to moral leadership of this planet.

WHY BEER BUDDIES SHOULDN'T RUN COUNTRIES

Short post today, headache. With the week of bad financial news cascading behind the veneer of much ado about 4 diamond hookers, Two things have become abundantly clear to LOST: 1. Biff the sadistic didn't cause all of our economic ills - these have been in the making for some time in many cases. But, notwithstanding 1, 2. Biff the Sadistic is the wrong guy to have "in charge" in a time of crisis. We've seen it with 9/11 - would somebody else not on a month long vacation and with an unused terror czar have prevented it? We'll never know. Would somebody else have caught bin Laden without pursuing the shiny of Iraq dangled in front of him by frothing neo-cons - eager to exorcise old ghosts of their grandparents' Holocaust experience? Would somebody else have marshalled more resources to New Orleans to mitigate Katrina damages, or at least done more to accelerate repairs there? Have reacted with something other than "why does this stuff always happen when I'm relaxing?" Would somebody else have made jokes in public about not finding the very horrific weapons we were assured existed - which were the crux of why Iraq was invaded? Would somebody else make up crank songs about pardoning felons, or rogue vice presidents who ignore subpoenas and bury/shred/deny the existence of documents? A multiplicity of "yesses." You might let the neighborhood Biff watch your mastiff while you go out of town for an overnight. But you wouldn't leave Biff in charge of your infant. And while you might let Biff play with your trainset - when he's broken it - oh, I mean when it breaks, neither Biff nor his drunken buddies are the ones you want to fix it, either.

42 + 2 +0 = 12




Its not a math question. Its a matter of synergy, a formula for success that the Wizard's apprentice has concocted. After two consecutive trips to the big table, and a little toying with the chemistry, its looking like the little bears from the Southern Branch are gonna get the dozenth banner. Bring it on home, Bruins. Do it for Coach Wooden!!!

HEADLINES THAT ARE SPIT-DINNER FUNNY!

From an actual AP story online today, there’s this little beauty

Bush: Cheney to press for Mideast peace

Next they’ll be reporting Britney and Lindsay to Reorganize Women’s Christian Temperance Union, or something equally ridiculous. Maybe David Duke to Lobby for Racial Equality.

WHY NOT CALL IT “PRESS THE MEAT”

Week after week, General Electric’s Sunday anchor show continues its devolution into a shell of its once and former self; the one time place where the exalted could be humbled and the humble could be exalted has of late become the TV show whose writers went on strike and never came back. How else does one explain the perpetually available seat for the chock-fulla bile Misses Carville and her very own married of convenience dueling banjos boy? Or the obsequious double standard with which punkinhaid Timmeh bashes Democratic politicians with their apparent double speak, while practically fawning and fluffing all that the Right has to offer? Yo, Timmeh, you’re not on Fox yet.

So it dawned on LOST that perhaps the show that won’t die needs a makeover, and what better way to start than with a simple name change? “Press the Meat” – as its deli evocative name implies, will continue to feature what appears to be fresh, pink delights for the mind. Its just that, upon sufficient consideration the viewer will recognize that the content has been boiled down, rendered, packed with fillers and semi-toxic preservatives, guaranteed to leave you thirsting for something more at the end of each less than satisfying episode. And Timmeh can stow the suits, in favor of a white smock and paper Sailor hat, to boot. This could be herald of the return of truth in broadcasting – not the integrity rich days of Murrow, or even Cronkite, but at least as far back as the Family hour, where everyone knew exactly what to expect, instead of anticipating a really hard hitting, put-em-on-the-spot-to explain-themselves. That is just sooooo pre Gulf War 1, now, isn’t it?